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Lily Gladstone is gushing over her Under the Bridge co-star Riley Keough.
Talking with ET’s Cassie DiLaura from the Los Angeles premiere of their new show on Monday, the 37-year-old Oscar nominee said she immediately knew she wanted to be on the project as soon as she learned who was attached to it.
“When I heard Riley was attached, I was just dying to — I’ve been dying to work with her for a long time, so it also gave me great confidence,” she shared. “There was a little bit of a hesitancy doing true crime so soon after doing Killers of the Flower Moon, but I knew that with Riley not only starring in it, but EP-ing it that it was gonna be a very compassionate deep dive into a story.”
The show is based on Rebecca Godfrey’s novel about the true story of 14-year-old Reena Virk (Vritika Gupta) who was brutally murdered after going to a party with friends and never returning home. The series follows the investigation through Godfrey’s eyes, as well as the eyes of Gladstone’s police officer character, Cam Bentland.
In Martin Scorsese‘s Killers of the Flower Moon — a film which scored Gladstone her first Oscar nomination and made her a household name — she starred as Mollie Burkhart, a real member of the Osage Nation who was central to solving the Osage murders of the 1920s. That movie was an adaptation of the 2017 nonfiction book written by David Grann detailing the murders, including the killings of Burkhart’s mother and sisters.
For Gladstone, the hesitancy to go from one true-crime adaptation to another so quickly was countered by Keough, 34, and the scripts put together, which she says tell the tragic tale in a nuanced and respectful way.
Gladstone shared, “I feel like true crime gets commodified, it gets sensationalized so much and we forget the truth element of it in lieu of focusing on the crime. And the series took such a compassionate approach in how we see Reena — she’s with us in every episode, you fall in love with her, you really empathize with her family.”
While the show clearly tackles some dark and heavy topics throughout its eight-episode run, the actress told ET that she, Keough and their fellow co-stars and crew members were able to have a lot of fun while not on camera in order to bring humor and light-heartedness to the project.
“I feel like a lot of actors, when we’re immersed in stories that are so heavy, there’s a levity that you bring to the work in between [scenes] because that’s what keeps you sustained through it,” the Fancy Dance star said. “It’s so easy to get short and grumpy with people if you’re plagued by something and then that just affects the work. I think you kind of honor the work by recognizing it’s a privilege to get to be able to share these stories — we share other people’s stories and there’s a responsibility to that.”
As for whispers that Gladstone and Keough could see Emmy nominations for the show so soon after their respective nominations at the Oscars and Emmy Awards — Keough received a nom for Best Lead Actress in a Limited Series for Prime Video’s Daisy Jones and the Six — the actress said she is not getting caught up on what awards could possibly be coming her way.
“This story gives you so many humans, gives you so many characters and these kids are just unbelievable,” she said. “I remember telling Riley, it’s like, no matter what our storyline ends up being, the kids carry the show and it’s gonna be a compelling, amazing story that is really unique.”
Watch the trailer for the series in the player below:
Under the Bridge premieres on Hulu with its first two episodes on April 17 and subsequent episodes dropping weekly after that.
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